MOCA

As far as brand sponsorship of art-related events goes, some collaborations fare better than others (see Lizzie Widdicomb’s scathing New Yorker review of the brand-forward Van Cleef & Arpels exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt), but I have to hand it to Levi’s for hosting a legit, non-advertisey addition to MoCA’s “Art in the Street‘” exhibition.

Museums seem to always be on the lookout for new ways to group and exhibit the artwork already available to them in their permanent collection. Earlier this month, MoMA opened “Abstract Expressionists New York,” with pieces “drawn entirely from the Museum’s vast holdings” – not that there’s anything wrong with that; They bought those pieces for a reason and might as well show them off. MoCA will follow suit later this week with “The Artist’s Museum.” The title of the exhibition is a bit misleading; There’s no separate museum, it’s only meant to connote that the exhibition won’t be focusing on a particular movement but on a particular group of artists, Los Angeles-based artists, of course, from 1980-2010. They leave it to you to find a common thread.

Double Standard, 1961
Dennis Hopper may be best remembered as an actor in roles like the nitrous oxide-sucking Frank Booth in BLUE VELVET (1986) or the mind warped photojournalist in APOCALYPSE NOW (1976) or free-wheeling Billy opposite Peter Fonda in EASY RIDER (1969), which Hopper also directed, but all throughout his busy career in cinema there wasn’t often a time when he was without a camera around his neck. For the past 60 years Hopper worked as a visual artist in a variety of mediums, from paint and assemblage to photography, sculpture and film installations. Paying tribute to his life outside cinema, MoCA’s exhibit “Dennis Hopper Double Standard” is the first comprehensive survey of Hopper’s artistic career to be mounted by a North American museum.

Robert Rauschenberg’s “Small Rebus” It seems crazy that MOCA, one of the most important and influential contemporary art museums in the world has only been around for 30 years, and I suppose it speaks to the ingenuity of its founders that it has made such an impact in that time. To celebrate its 30th birthday,…